ncy--the faculty of getting things--is at last rewarded as it
should be, for the efficient have inherited the earth and its fulness.
The lowly, whose happiness is greater and whose welfare is more
thoroughly conserved when governed than when governing, as a
twentieth-century philosopher said of them, are settled and happy in the
state which reason and experience teach is their God-appointed lot. They
are comfortable too; and if the patriarchal ideal of a vine and fig tree
for each is not yet attained, at least each has his rented patch in the
country or his rented cell in a city building. Bread and the circus are
freely given to the deserving, and as for the undeserving, they are
merely reaping the rewards of their contumacy and pride. Order reigns,
each has his justly appointed share, and the state rests, in security,
'lapt in universal law.'"

Mr. Brooks, on the other hand, sees rising and dissolving and rising
again in the social flux the ominous forms of a new society which is the
direct antithesis of a benevolent feudalism. He trembles at the rash
intrepidity of the capitalists who fight the labor unions, for by such
rashness he greatly fears that labor will be driven to express its aims
and strength in political terms, which terms will inevitably be
socialistic terms.

To keep down the rising tide of socialism, he preaches greater meekness
and benevolence to the capitalists. No longer may they claim the right
to run their own business, to beat down the laborer's standard of living
for the sake of increased profits, to dictate terms of employment to
individual workers, to wax righteously indignant when organized labor
takes a hand in their business. No longer may the capitalist say "my"
business, or even think "my" business; he must say "our" business, and
think "our" business as well, accepting labor as a partner whose voice
must be heard. And if the capitalists do not become more meek and
benevolent in their dealings with labor, labor will be antagonized and
will proceed to wreak terrible political vengeance, and the present
social flux will harden into a status of socialism.

Mr. Brooks dreams of a society at which Mr. Ghent sneers as "a slightly
modified individualism, wherein each unit secures the just reward of his
capacity and service." To attain this happy state, Mr. Brooks imposes
circumspection upon the capitalists in their relations with labor. "If
the socialistic spirit is to be held in abeya